Crime/Courts

OAKLAND _ A stabbing Sunday night in East Oakland left a woman in the hospital and a suspect on the run, police said.
Just after 6 p.m. police responded to a call in the 3500 block of 35th Avenue, near MacArthur Boulevard, to find a woman suffering from multiple knife wounds. She was taken to a local hospital where she is in stable condition, police said.
Police are searching for an adult male suspect but did not have anyone in custody as of 7:30 a.m. Monday.

There’s a new member of the Berkeley Police Department and this new member comes with a six-year warranty.

On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council authorized the city manager to spend about $214,500 to buy a remote controlled bomb disposal robot. A combination of grant and city money will cover the costs of the robot, a warranty and parts.

Police spokesman Officer Andrew Frankel said the department hasn’t settled on a name. But officers are happy to have him (her?) on board.

“It’s a cool because it’s a lot of money to be getting for the robot. It’s certainly a nice resource to have and any time we have a tool to help us and keep the public safe, it’s a good thing,” Frankel said.

In a time when police departments are strapped for cash, short staffed, overworked and under fire (for sure), the federal government is actually requiring that all civilian bomb squads have a remote controlled bomb disposal robot as part of their equipment inventory. Go figure.

Berkeley police have had their own bomb squad for more than 30 years and each year respond to a handful of calls for service involving suspicious packages, suspected explosive devices and recovered explosives, police officials said.

Six people will be trained on the robot, which is operated using a radio, tethered cable or fiber optic cable, police said.

Some folks are up in arms over word that HBO is filming a series about pimps, based in Oakland. They are worried that it’s portraying Oakland in a bad light, a la The Wire, HBO’s primo series about political graft, drugs, homicides in Baltimore and the often-flawed cops that investigate and solve the crimes.

Well, get ready, cuz pimps and the prostitution trade aren’t the only topics filmmakers are interested in.

A documentary film crew funded by the Discovery Channel has been prowling around West Oakland the past month for a three-hour series on gangs, interviewing folks and filming funerals.

They are focusing on the impacts from the deadly feud between the Acorn and Ghost town gangs that culminated in a big-time raid in June and the arrest of more than 50 gang members, including the alleged ringleader of Acorn, Marc Anthony Candler.

The film makers plan to come back to Oakland for more footage next year. So much for Oakland’s image.

So Wednesday morning I went to the West Oakland Library, and another reporter went to Rossmoor in Walnut Creek, and we talked to folks about the election, whether they’d ever thought an African American would be president, and what they thought Obama’s first priorities should be.

Despite the geographic, racial and in some cases, economic differences, most all thought it was a great day for the United States.

We videotaped the interviews, check out some of them here:

The rest will be posted in a couple of days, along with a couple of print interviews that got cut for space in the paper. Stay tuned…

Add your own comments about the election, and how it affected you and what you think comes next for our newest president.